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Lobbying for Agriculture with Tom Sell · Conservation Stories

• 0:13
  Speaker A: Hello, friends. Welcome again to another episode of Conservation Stories. I'm your host, Hilary Timmins Sims, and I have with me today Mr. Tom Sell. This is going to be a fun podcast. So I know Tom through a couple of different ways and I'm not really sure which one necessarily the most, but.
• 0:39
  Speaker B: Tom, we're both hop lanes drifters.
• 0:42
  Speaker A: There you go. There you go. I drifted all the way from Brownfield to Earth and then back to Lubbock. That's what you call moving far away from.
• 0:50
  Speaker B: I love it.
• 0:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. So, Tom, is your. A lobbyist? Yeah, that's a scary word.
• 0:58
  Speaker B: One of the most reviled professions, I will say.
• 1:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, I spent some hours in Austin representing, trying to get a bill passed. So not, you know, I'm not registered lobbyist or anything. I probably said more times people are lying than I've ever said in my life. Like I was like to my face, to other people's faces, like how I don't get this, you know? Yeah. You know, and then you are like, you need to be working with these people. I'm like, long term, how do you do that? How do you have relationships with people that, you know, I just, I don't understand that.
• 1:38
  Speaker B: Well, I'm happy to say I'm a lobbyist who sleeps well at night. We took a kind of an oath when we were starting our business. Larry Combass and myself, of course, Larry represented the, the 19th district of Texas. He's a politician also. Not a highly favored profession these days, sadly. It's honorable work, though. It's noble work. And we just took a pleasure to say we're never gonna take on a client or a cause we don't believe in. Our heart of hearts is in the best interest of all Americans in our nation. And we have the privilege of representing a lot of farmers and ranchers and related kind of agribusinesses, but small enterprises, these kind of ground up enterprises that try and do a great job with our land and water resources to do the very important work of producing food and fiber for the world, for the people of this world. So we love the work and have really been able to carve out a great niche all in Washington, D.C. on the federal side. I don't really do a lot of work at the state level, but ag policy is mostly occupied by our federal government and, and has been since the beginning of our nation. So, yeah, it's a real honor and privilege and hopefully maybe one listener, maybe just one, will have a little better view of obvious by the time we conclude.
• 2:55
  Speaker A: Well, I You know, I, you know, one of the ways that we connected was in hemp, which is like the worst industry that has ever hit with the exception of probably marijuana. But it is because of marijuana that it is so bad. You know, hemp is so bad. And it's, it's a challenge. But don't know how many times I've said, you know, when we get to the place when someone like Dom Sell can do something, we're going to get somewhere. But right now we're not getting anywhere. So anyway, but I, and I appreciate your. The conversation that we had during that time was super helpful and just, you know, candid about where that industry was and how people were viewing it. And, you know, so it's a, it's interesting because it is economically coming back around. We've got a few folks that are making some money again. That's good. So anyway, you never know.
• 3:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is, it's hard and it's hard blending, you know, kind of what the. What the. What our laws will allow. But then also, business is an entirely different challenge. And sometimes something can make a lot of sense on paper, but unless you have, you know, this is human nature is just kind of stick with what you know. And so it's hard to create some real shifts and changes. But look, we're a nation that's been built by folks who build better mousetraps.
• 4:16
  Speaker A: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And we kind of have now had this conversation of the importance of slowing down and maybe some of the negative consequences of being so industrialized and so efficient, but also how I really, my favorite place is the middle. But I, you know, for many years was told that's where this, the dead skunks and the yellow stripes are. But I find it's probably actually where the truth is because it's the hardest place to get to, you know, and not throwing out like one. One type of what people think of maybe as, quote, unquote, an industrial agriculture, you know, versus maybe a more local distribution of, you know, agriculture. So you really kind of are. You represent. Those are big commodities.
• 5:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's a big issue even right now in Washington, D.C. secretary Vilsack, our current Secretary of Agriculture, has made really a point in his current administration. Of course, he served for eight years under President Obama, and he's served the last three and a half under President Biden. And he said this time around that he really wanted to change the folks of USDA to do two things. One, address climate change and two, to kind of lift up the what he would call the underserved kind of farmers or the looked over farmers. I think he's done that. He's gone too far in that. You know, we have in our nation really 150,000 farm families that produce 90% of the goods.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: Right.
• 5:53
  Speaker B: And that supports the infrastructure that also creates niches for others. And I'll be the first to argue, you got to take care of the big picture items. We are very blessed in this nation to have a food and fiber supply that is the least expensive for our consumer public. Our 330 million population in the US and we export to the world, but we provide us a food supply that as a percentage of person's daily income or time is the lowest cost food supply.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: When people are now going to the grocery store and it's expensive, it is not because the farmer is making any more money.
• 6:35
  Speaker B: That's right. It's all, you know, we always talk about, like in a loaf of bread you might have, you know, a nickel worth of wheat in that the rest is packaging and processing and all that goes into that. So when people talk about this kind of industrial food system that really is kind of off of the farmers. When you look at the landscape of America, it is dominated by family enterprises. They're trying to do a great work. They're trying to pass on that land better than it was passed to them to the next generation of farmers. So they really do care for the land, the resources. They don't do it perfectly. It's a fallen world. But look, they've done an amazing job. And we have a highly productive agricultural sector. We also have an economy that allows for a lot of creativity. And it's been really exciting for me to see some of the people that are finding niches and you know, as we know more about health and we know about more about what we're consuming, there will continue to be those niches. I've loved kind of. I have a lot of great friends in the organic production side and I'm tickled for them. I think it's so cool and I love the way they care for their land. Yes. What, what I get uncomfortable with is when they try and market their product to the exclusion of others. That is saying big agriculture is bad. I love it when they go and market their products that selling we're trying to produce something better. And you can know me, you can know where it was produced, where it's from. That kind of stuff to me is just very exciting and very cool.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Well, and that is part of our Capitalist society, though, is like, what I have is better than what you have. I want to sell it to you.
• 8:10
  Speaker B: That is the nature of marketing.
• 8:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's just kind of how it works, you know, trying to move people to your side. And I grew up very, you know, conventional and on a conventional farm. And then we farmed conventionally until we couldn't farm anymore. And, you know, I have a lot of thoughts now that I've gotten older about, you know, some of that and what do I think of, you know, some of the unintended consequences, you know, But I also know that, you know, two things are true at the same time. One is that there's people that would have gone hungry would go hungry, and also that we could do better, you know, but we don't have to get rid of one for the sake of the other. You know, we can have a local niche, and we need to. Covid showed us. We need to make sure that we're still able to access food without having to come from Mexico or wherever, you know, but we also need the other side of that, too, you know, And a lot of times, what we could get locally, we're privileged if we can get that, because that means we have the time to cook something that's not processed, and we have the money to pay for something that's gonna be more expensive. So we have to remember that it's gotta be something that's. Food needs to be accessible to everyone. And part of the way that happens is through the food bill. Farm bill, I'm sorry, Which we probably should call it the food bill, maybe, because it goes.
• 9:34
  Speaker B: You bet. Yeah.
• 9:35
  Speaker A: So a lot of people, I think in ag, we're all. Everybody's wondering about, you know, the farm bill. There's a lot of rumors going around, like, heard yesterday that this is the same farm bill that we had in the depression. It hasn't been changed. Might be some exaggerations to that, definitely, you know, but. So the farm bill. Give us a little history on the farm bill. And why would somebody that just goes to Walmart and buys their groceries care about the farm bill?
• 10:00
  Speaker B: That's a great question. Thanks for that. That's a great setup, too. Yeah. Let me start here. You know, we have, from the beginning of our nation, had had a policy of trying to get people rooted to the land and creating commerce from that land, that then they'll build, you know, hospitals and churches and schools and everything. And that has worked amazingly well. And really, even the roots of that, it was revolutionary at the time. Right. Guys like Thomas Jefferson writing lengthy treatises on how a citizenship that is rooted to the land would be a better place to foster this kind of democratic experiment that we were getting into. In a lot of ways, it was a rejection of the European model, which was kind of this landed gentry, right. The lords and the people of means and wealth who would basically say, oh, ordinary citizens, they don't have the resources, they don't have the wherewithal to manage like an agricultural enterprise, manage the land. And we as America kind of rejected that. We said, no, we're going to let ordinary people land populate and tend to that land. We had great things like the Homestead act that planted thousands and thousands of families out across rural America. And the Democrats experiment has blossomed from that in the what we think of as kind of modern farm policy. This was enacted in the 30s, post mechanical revolution, when a lot of things changed. Right. So the land that one man could cover prior to the mechanical revolution was one tenth of the land that one man could cover afterward. So you have this massive shift. Even looking at Pre World War I, 50% of nation's families were on farms. Now we have 1.9 million farmers in total out of 330 million people. And only 150,000 produce 90% of the goods. So it's a tiny, tiny fraction less.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Than a percent, I think. Now, aren't we down to that?
• 11:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing. And sometimes, Tilly, to your earlier point, sometimes these independent, entrepreneurial farm families that populate the heartland, they do feel like they're kind of at the end of a rope or they. They kind of feel like they're serfs to the seed companies and the major kind of agribusiness manufacturers that process food from their farm. And right now is one of those times. It's like, man, I think that too.
• 12:23
  Speaker A: That feels like you're stuck in the middle. It feels like almost like, yeah, sharecropping. We're the skunks. We're the dead skunk from the middle.
• 12:31
  Speaker B: Exactly. That's a tough thing. But this is fundamentally why we have a farm bill, is to keep those independent, entrepreneurial family farms independent. There doesn't mean there aren't tough times like right now. I mean, we are in this incredible cost squeeze. Right. The costs of production, be it land rents, be it labor, be it, you know, fertilizer and fuel and seed and all the inputs have gone up dramatically, really, post Covid kind of hit a peak in 2022. But many of the prices have remained stick. Yeah. And now, commodity prices over the last two years have declined anywhere from, you know, 30 to 50%.
• 13:09
  Speaker A: Right. And we're talking about these are the same prices like when I was a girl. I think what it's hard for people to understand about farmers is that every year you risk it all.
• 13:20
  Speaker B: I think that's so important to point out.
• 13:24
  Speaker A: It's not. I'm taking a small risk every year.
• 13:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. For that, you know, and you don't have payday every two weeks or every month.
• 13:33
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 13:33
  Speaker B: You have one crop that you're harvesting. You may diversify a little bit with some cattle or animals, or maybe you have some fall crops and spring crops, but it's all loaded into that crop that's in the ground. And this year is a year where most farmers are looking at and saying this is going to produce a negative return on investment. I mean, that kind of stuff would not fly on Wall Street. Thank God for the independent, entrepreneurial family farms who built. Built themselves for that. And they can weather it, but they need some help to stay independent. The farm bill, in a lot of ways, keeps them, you know, rather than having to kind of sell out to bigger players, it keeps them kind of independent and on their feet. And that's why, you know, it's such an honor to get to work for those farm families. It's not perfect, and it's going to be a challenge this year. You asked about the farm bill, why it matters. That's one key component. Our. It's a record of success. Our nation is richly blessed by these farms who annually produce about $500 billion in new wealth.
• 14:36
  Speaker A: So. And food. Food security is national security.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker A: We have to have it.
• 14:39
  Speaker B: You got to have it. Yeah. There was an old chairman of the Ag Committee from South Texas, from the Rio Grande Valley named Kika de la Garza. He used to always tell a story about interviewing the Secretary of Defense and, and talking about, you know, these high powered nuclear submarines that can stay submerged for really as long as you want to stay submerged. And Kika de La Garres would always ask the question, how long can they stay submerged? And they would say, mechanically, forever. It's really almost limitless. And Kika would kind of press the point. He was a great guy. He kind of raspy voice, and he'd say, no, how long can they stay submerged? And he'd just keep pressing the question until the Secretary of Defense would answer, well, until they run out of food. And Kiko would be like, aha, there you go. That's it. We are absolutely essential yes. And, yeah, he told a great story around that. But it is fundamentally we take it for granted as Americans. Right. We've never really known want. We've not known empty store shelves. We saw a little glimpse of that during COVID but it was a tiny. And it was really more about toilet paper. It was less about food supplies. So we take it for granted. We shouldn't. We know that, but that's kind of human nature as well. But it's why it's important that when we get something like a farm bill going across the floor of the House or the Senate, we try and muster all the strength just to help people understand why it's so fundamentally important.
• 16:16
  Speaker A: Out here on the Texas plains, water is everything. And there's a resource that's as vital as it is fragile. Our Playa Lakes. These lakes are nature's reservoir, catching rainwater to recharge our aquifer and provide lifelines for wildlife. But now they need our help. In collaboration with the Texas Fly Lakes Conservation Initiative and the Cargill Global Water Challenge, SARAH has started the Our Legacy is Tomorrow's Water initiative to inspire and work with landowners to restore and protect our Playa lakes. Each playa we save helps secure a sustainable water future for the generations that will be coming after us. Whether it's improving soil health, restoring habitats, or recharging groundwater, we are committed. Committed to making a difference. Together, we can build a legacy that we can all be proud of. To learn how you can join in, visit the Playa Lakes Restoration Initiative page on the SARAH website. Let's keep Texas water flowing strong for the future. Visit sara-conservation.com the part that goes to the farm of the farm bill is a percentage of a percent.
• 17:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker A: Right. It's not like what percentage of the farm bill is now. And I will. Let me just preface this by saying I have zero problem with food programs. And in fact, I probably fall on the other side. You know my friend Brandon Lips? Do you know Brandon? No.
• 17:53
  Speaker B: Brandon.
• 17:53
  Speaker A: Well, Brandon, you know, he was undersecretary and food stamps was his thing. Right. And he's like, it's the worst job because no one's ever happy. It's either not enough or it's too much.
• 18:02
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:02
  Speaker A: So I probably fall on the side of like, let's. Let's do what we need to do.
• 18:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:07
  Speaker A: Keep people from being hungry.
• 18:08
  Speaker B: I'm compassionate in that way, for sure. I mean, we are a nation of wealth, and you hate to see anyone.
• 18:15
  Speaker A: And it's actually not going to keep anybody from going hungry. Also, I mean, like, just, you know, I've worked with several single moms trying to help them get on.
• 18:25
  Speaker B: Now, these SNAP programs are, you know, they've been a big part of our federal policy since the early 60s, and it's now grown to where 1 in 7Americans are on food stamps. Over 40 million Americans. To your question, it's more than 80% of the funds that are, you know, allocated in the farm bill. So over $100 billion a year goes into that food stamp program. On the other side, on the farm safety net kind of side of the farm bill, it's actually decreased. And I think it's important that listeners know this.
• 19:01
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 19:01
  Speaker B: You know, when I was in Washington, D.C. and Larry Combass was chairman of the Ag Committee, we were working with a farm program that would annually obligate somewhere around 25 to 28 billion dollars. Now, the current baseline, and that was then, those were real numbers at that time. So talking nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted, these days we're dealing with a baseline in the ag safety net that is about 16 to 18 billion dollars. So we've actually taken about a 20% decrease over that time. And it's kind of changed. It used to be more FSA oriented Title 1 programs. Now the bulk of the baseline is in federal crop insurance, which is an incredible tool that really helps farmers kind of protect their risk and adopt technology. And it gives them some, a lot of flexibility as well in how they manage their operation. But there are times when crop insurance, and I'm a big advocate for it, but there are times like now when crop prices are so low that you just, you're not able to purchase much protection because you don't want to overinsure. Right. Because then there would be an incentive to not harvest the crop. So the guarantees that you can purchase in crop insurance are always tied to what the market's paying for crops. And right now the market is just not paying much. And so that's when you need a strong Title one to kind of come in and say, look, these things are beyond the farmer's control. John F. Kennedy famously had a saying that the farmer is the only person in the economy who buys retail, sells wholesale, and pays the freight both ways. They're squeezed in this position. And right now they are selling world commodity markets. Oftentimes these, these commodities, whether cotton or corn or soybeans or peanuts or wheat, whatever it is, they're distorted by our foreign. By foreign governments.
• 20:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because now, really, since nafta, if I understand this right, like before nafta you didn't really, we didn't really necessarily use ag as a tool for foreign.
• 21:05
  Speaker B: Well, we've always been. Yeah. Diplomacy or diplomacy. Yeah, we've always been fairly altruistic. We've said, look, carnation is very blessed and we're one of the wealthy nations of the world and let's lead by example and have very low barriers to entry. That means foreign countries can sometimes manipulate and dump competitive products onto our market. And our farmers have to eat that. Right. Because of the actions of some foreign government. And we've also kind of lowered, that's been part of the reason why we've lowered our supports to US Farmers as part of what was called the Uruguay Round Agreement on agriculture, part of the whole GATT process and the World Trade Organization. So, you know, the, the independent entrepreneurial family farms are kind of competing in this world where our government wants to be altruistic. And the farm bill is kind of the one thing where we say, okay, farmers, we're going to stand by y'all, because we know you compete in a marketplace that's more uncertain than other businesses. Right. You get paid that one time a year. You're subject to the value vagaries of weather throughout that year. And it's just particularly challenging for that reason. You have to pay input costs like fuel and fertilizer that you have no real control over. And they've gone up and they've been sticky. You have no control over the price that you sell at or very little control unless you're into some of these high end kind of specialty markets. And we can talk more about that. It's an exciting area, but for the bulk of the cotton or the corn or whatever it is, you know, it just goes into those world commodity markets. And so you're the price taker. And that's where the farm bill comes in and stands by and says, okay, American farmer, we love you. We're going to stand by you through these difficult times until we get to better times. And that's what it's all about.
• 22:48
  Speaker A: Well, and I think that part of the confusion I think people have about the large farmer is that the amount of land that people farm, it continues to have to increase because your net profit continues to go down. And so you are stuck in this cycle of having to get bigger, get out, you know, unless you are. And I think you're right, that is, it is exciting. I think some of the niche markets that are coming available, you know, and we'll see some of that. But I, I hope that people can Understand like that farmers, they need that support, you know, and even with the support, sometimes you can't make it, you know, and that's, I mean, that was our story. We, you know, we did well for the first several years and we were, you know, just, it was great. I mean, we were looking at, hey, we're going to be able to, you know, have a. Make a living and we might be able to build a house in 10 years. And then over the course of seven years, year after year after year after year, you lost your net. We lost a little more net worth and a little more net worth. And until there's nothing left, you know.
• 23:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, it can, it can turn on you quickly. And I know a lot of farm families are feeling that just right now. I mean, they're looking at this crop that's in the field, they're going to be bringing it in to at a low value. They're looking at a lot of loss of capital this year. And they're wondering it's why it's so important. And I want, I want any listener to, to hear that we are, we are working so hard to try and seize the moment and get this farm bill to completion, to fruition this fall when Congress comes back after the elections in the lame duck session. I think we're set up to bring this baby home. I know how much so many farm families are relying on that and we are working overtime to.
• 24:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think without crop insurance, I don't know what we would have left here in our region. I just don't.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. And happily there, There are some. Look, the cattle side of the equation is pretty good right now. Dairy side is pretty good. There are some bright spots in the ag economy.
• 24:56
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:58
  Speaker B: But yeah, for just, mainly for just your traditional kind of row crop. Farmers really tough.
• 25:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Is. And you know, those, those folks are important. I wonder, you know, where we are as we continue to. We will be out of water. I mean, it's not a question like, are we going to run out of water? It's like when we're out of water, you know, what's what, you know, what will people. What will happen in this area? You know, how do you help people? Don't wait till then. Like, let's figure out something now, you know what I mean? That can help us diversify even, you know.
• 25:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 25:34
  Speaker A: Just into like, how do we do that? You know, But I think, then I think that's something that needs to be considered in the farm bill is you have a whole region, 5 million acres within an hour of us, 5 million acres. You have a whole region that is completely. I mean, like what. We're completely dependent on our rural neighbors. I mean, like, we are dependent on agriculture. And so it's not even just about, quote, unquote, bailing people out, which is what I hear. It's about, you know, someone that has no connection with agriculture, has probably no understanding of how their life will be impacted if we don't have some help in transitioning and. Or whatever we need. And I think part of that is what you are doing, which is advocating for, you know, not, I think, not just our area, because I know that you are. You work for the Southwest Council of Agribusinesses, and that'd be great. I'd love to hear a little bit about, about them and their work. Let me, Let me go rewind just a minute. You have used the term Title 1 a couple of times. So, so you don't sound like Charlie Brown's school teacher. Can you explain to us what.
• 26:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: What is, what do you mean by that?
• 26:52
  Speaker B: Sorry about that. That was very much Washington kind of inside letter speak. But the farm bill is made up of 12 different titles. Title one is your traditional kind of farm safety net. It basically is set up to say when international world cotton prices for this area that you are in, when world cotton prices are below a certain level that Congress has deemed as an adequate support level for producers, not guaranteeing their profit. But if it's below this, we're going to. We're going to generate some payments to help get farmers up to at least that level. And so that's what title is. It's a traditional farm safety net. So apologize for.
• 27:31
  Speaker A: No, that's okay. And that's what people need to understand. Like, that's what keeps getting cut. That's what keeps getting cut. And so there's less and less of that. And when people. If you don't like industrial quote, unquote, ag, if you don't like people for farming a whole, whole lot of land, then we need to figure out how to keep.
• 27:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, we need a strong.
• 27:51
  Speaker A: We need a change so that people can actually stay on smaller acreage.
• 27:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right. And look, you know, there's always going to be change and that's going to create some of these niche markets. Even, you know, what you were talking about on the water. I'm probably not as dire as you, and part of my hope is just in the creativity of people. I mean, I kind of like, I was raised when George Herbert Walker Bush was running for president, he would talk about 1000 points of life. Right. The creativity of individuals throughout our economy who are finding better ways. So I know a lot of farmers around here now who are harvesting rain off their roofs and storing it. And the fact is we're not gonna. There's always gonna be some amount of water. We're in a semi arid climate for sure. We get on average 17 acres of inches of rain a year. And some years that can be two and some years that can be, you know, 35.
• 28:40
  Speaker A: Yep, yep. Those are the people that we're talking to. We like to see those people and what are they doing?
• 28:45
  Speaker B: I know you do. And I want to encourage those people too, because it's going to take some of that real creativity. How to do more with less. That's one of the beautiful things of our culture. And it's what we as kind of West Texans, I think.
• 28:57
  Speaker A: So we have taken the least of the least and made something of it.
• 29:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. This is hard land. But. But people have been creative and resilient. And my hope and my faith and my belief is they'll continue to be. Won't be everyone. And there'll be some that go out and get city jobs that, like me, that are, in a lot of ways are easier and they're.
• 29:20
  Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Absolutely.
• 29:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker A: So I agree.
• 29:23
  Speaker B: But I love standing by those who are bringing the creativity to the table.
• 29:27
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 29:28
  Speaker B: And long suffering and working through, through the problems and getting to a better day.
• 29:32
  Speaker A: I do too. And, you know, we love to champion those people because a lot of times those are the people that people are like, they're crazy. But, you know, we have mutual friends, the Binghams. And I, you know, I just thought they were nuts. I mean, just what are you doing? Why are you doing something different? Because this has always worked, you know, and now I love how when they started experiencing, I had someone tell me, you know, we've all learned long enough. If they're trying something, we better watch, you know, and I just love that, you know, and that's what I want is like that sense of how do we look what our neighbors are doing? And let's all encourage them because, you know, several years ago there was a survey that was released that said the number one reason that farmers are reluctant to change practices is what will my neighbors think? And the second is economics. You know, it really does speak to that sense of, we live in small places.
• 30:35
  Speaker B: You know, there is truth that. I'm with you. I love the Binghams and You know, Cliff, I know, has told me the real motivation. And look, it's been hemp, wine, organic. They're into a lot of different things.
• 30:48
  Speaker A: All kinds of things.
• 30:49
  Speaker B: And really his motivation in that was, how do I keep my kids on the farm? And he had a bunch of kids.
• 30:57
  Speaker A: Yes, they did.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: It was like, how do we, instead of one family having revenue for one family on this, how do we increase the value of what we can produce on the land so that we can support multiple things?
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Yes, and I will show you. Cliff has told me they went from conventional farming, 2000 acres. They've never changed. They've always kept that 2000 acres. Okay. Conventional farming and putting into the local economy just through wages, like 150,000. And then it went up through organics to like 250,000. Now they have a 2,000 acre farm and they're at 1.25 million. And that is what one single family is putting into the economy of Texas, just in wages. I want people to think about and the impact of a diversified, a diversified.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: Form, and it is taking risks and it's blood, sweat and tears and it's reputational risk and all that stuff going out on a limb. But yeah, kudos to them for doing it. And not that. Look, it's still. It's still. That's challenging. I mean, look what's happened to the wine markets post Covid as that kind of market has. You know, people start drinking way too much wine and moved other stuff.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: So it's.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: These markets are so difficult. So, you know, you figure something out, you get it going. But then there are difficult times to go through, soldier through. That is a story of agriculture.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: It is. Yeah, it is.
• 32:28
  Speaker B: That's why I love these. I love these people and I love getting to represent them. And Washington D.C. i think they're a real jewel. They're a real treasure for our nation. And so it's a real honor to.
• 32:39
  Speaker A: Get to speak on that. And, you know, not everybody believes the same and not everybody. You know, I've had people say farmers are the best environmentalists. I'm like, not all of them. Not all of them. You know, because we're just people.
• 32:51
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:51
  Speaker A: And some people absolutely are like, absolutely.
• 32:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm confident. And one of the other challenges we always face is there are folks who, particularly in Washington D.C. where I do a lot of work, who tend to analyze things on paper and say, well, this ought to be easy, so we ought to just enforce this change. And those people really need to get out of Washington D.C. dwight Eisenhower actually had kind of a fun saying on this. He would just say it's mighty easy to find farm when your plow is a pencil and your field is a piece of paper. They think they kind of know best and what can we do? This kind of true conservation doesn't happen best when it's kind of forced on you out of Washington D.C. it's the creativity of the people who are actually attached to the land. It's empowering them with information and sometimes with resources. Because sometimes the best conservation doesn't yield the best return on investment.
• 33:45
  Speaker A: No, exactly, that's true.
• 33:46
  Speaker B: And so that's why we have some of these conservation program this Title two started getting nerdy on you again. Title two of the farm bill is all about how do we come by farmers and help equip them with tools to not only adopt technology but make the natural resources go longer. Build into the soil instead of extract from the soil.
• 34:05
  Speaker A: That was the point of these conservation programs is for them to be locally led and grassroots. And I think over time I will say like Lacey and I travel to a lot of different states and what we see happening, we still see a lot of that farmer led initiative in ideas in conservation and participating in conservation. Like maybe I would think that it used to be, you know, like when I actually, my granddad, I've got like newspaper clipping of my granddad and he was one of the first to win, you know, like a conservation award. And it's so interesting because it's same talking points you hear now, like he had like some grass raised pork, you know, and he was turning marginal land back into grassland and you know, converting, you know, doing some different crops and those kind of things. And I mean it's like it was like today, I mean it was so strange, you know what I mean? Because we call them clothes, quote unquote farming. But it's nothing different than like what actually he was doing in the 50s and the same organizations were doing, you know, but I see, you know, it's been really encouraging to see those systems that, and agencies that were in place be really, really impactful in those rural communities like in Oklahoma and Arkansas. And I mean that's, it's, we have learned that Texas, we've been kind of humbled, let me just say, you know, it's easy to be like, hey, we are from Texas and also like look what we did. We've lived in, we live in a place where people said you cannot live. And we have lived here for generations, you know, and then we Go other places and like, oh, my. We should just like, as my brother says, sit back and listen.
• 35:59
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, so listening, learning is huge. I love your reference here. I think it was Captain Randolph B. Marcy who first came upon the Ahno Escado and said, this will be a place that no man will ever permanently reside.
• 36:12
  Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my goodness. I remember.
• 36:13
  Speaker B: He was such a pansy.
• 36:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 36:15
  Speaker B: Maybe he couldn't hack it, but our forefathers did. Yeah.
• 36:18
  Speaker A: So my great granddad is like. They called him Peanut Wagner. He was the first to grow peanuts up on the plains. And, oh, yes, their family just. You cannot. You will freeze, you will starve, you will die up there. Sometimes I think. I actually think they might have been onto something. But we were like, oh, we can't do something. That's the exact thing we're going to do.
• 36:40
  Speaker B: But this land out here is amazingly rich. The soils produce great grass for growing cattle.
• 36:46
  Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
• 36:50
  Speaker B: It's awesome how we've cultivated this and built really stable, good, strong, growing communities here on the high plains of Texas. And it's an area I'm really proud to be from. Fifth generation West Texas.
• 37:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I feel the same way. You know, I. And it's just, even the older I get, the more value I place on, you know, the things that I just. In my culture. I. I think I probably a preacher, you probably have heard of Tim Keller. He talks about, you know, I think he was quoting Malcolm Mulgaridge talking about how for a man to understand his culture, he has to leave it, you know, And I think about that sometimes how the Internet has brought that ability for us to kind of leave, you know, and then we have. I personally feel like I have the responsibility to say, hey, this is a fabulous thing. This is our strength. This is our coordinating weakness. And we can't mess with one without messing with the other. So how do we help people really push into the things that we are really good at?
• 37:48
  Speaker B: I love it.
• 37:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I love Tim Keller. Great PCA pastor from New York.
• 37:54
  Speaker A: He is. He was great man. So, okay, Southwest Council of Agribusiness. What is it?
• 38:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:01
  Speaker A: And what do we know about it? What are they doing?
• 38:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for that. So Comm sl, our firm is a multi client firm. We have clients all over nation, really, in this agricultural space. But in 2007, Southwest Council was kind of built up around us and trying to give voice to really the alliance of crop growers and the businesses that support them or that they support. So it Was really started by some of the lenders from the area, as well as some of the implement dealers, John Deere and Case IH supplement dealers who said, look, this farm bill isn't just important to the farmers. And we were tired of seeing farmers get vilified as kind of welfare queens because farming is for an independent family. It may be that you're losing a hundred dollars an acre and you're covering a couple thousand to 5,000 acres. And so when these support payments come out, they can be big numbers now. And people are like, gosh, that person got $150,000 from the federal government. That's more than the average income of any family. The family average per capita income may be 60 or $70,000. How does that make sense? And the way it makes sense is because this is actually a business infusion into an enterprise that is spending maybe 700, $800 per acre on that ground, maybe losing in a particular year $100 or $200 an acre. And so they're trying to make up a part of that so it can add up. And that leads to groups like the environmental Working Group, which has kind of made a living. They don't actually have anything at risk, but they're a public interest group in Washington, D.C. that has really feathered their own nest by trying to vilify farmers and say, oh, this Tillery sim, she got $2 million over the past 40 years from the government. It sounds really big. And so they've kind of made a living off of this discontent. Or these guys in Southwest Council guys and gals said, we're tired of seeing our farmers vilified in this way and we need to be engaged in this fight for them. And so the Southwest council was formed in that way. It's kind of got a unique structure. Like individual farmers aren't members, but they're organizations like Plains Cotton Growers or the Texas Corn Producers. And it's a five state kind of regional organization organization. So all the commodity growers and then a lot of the banks and businesses that support them or that they support that say, yeah, we see the value in this farm bill and we want to be engaged in this fight too. So it's a really unique, fun organization. We've been very honored to get to work with that group for almost 20 years now.
• 40:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, of course, I grew up Combust was in office all my growing up years. Something that's just like household.
• 40:48
  Speaker B: Such a good man.
• 40:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so appreciate all that he's done for our region, you know, through the Years. And that's. It's an interesting thought. Tell me how you think. What's the best way to support, like, what is the best thing the farm bill can do? Like, if you. If you could just say, hey, this is common sense. I know all these families and I know how their businesses are running. This is what needs to happen. Is it just enough to be more than. Just enough to cover half of what. Now I have enough money to pay back half of what I owe. Right. Or for people to understand. When you farm, the cost is so expensive that you are taking out an operating note. This is the. I would say 99% of farmers, and we're talking about a million dollars easy a year. And that.
• 41:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, more than most people will borrow in a lifetime.
• 41:50
  Speaker A: In a lifetime. And that is not. Oh, they are living on that. I mean, that is what they are putting into seed and fuel and all of the labor and all of these things. So, I mean, that's the kind of thing we're talking about. So when you talk about someone getting $100 an acre check in a payment from the government over 2000 acres, seems like a lot like you're saying, but it's not. Is it more of that? Like, be shoring that up so that it can be more than just. What is cents on the dollar.
• 42:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. Modernizing that to our current cost of production is really important. And that when you try and really boil down what the current, you know, chairman of the House Agriculture committee in Washington, D.C. who's kind of gone out on a limb to support farmers, that's essentially what his bill does. It says, look, you know, the last time we updated these reference prices was in 2014. We've had 10 years of massive inflation on the cost side. Some of that's been made up for by gains in productivity. That's been the beauty of the American farmer, but not all of it. And so there's red ink out there. We need to update these support prices to where we say, if it goes below this amount, again, which is not necessarily a profitable amount, but if it goes below this amount, we're gonna throw out some support to stand by these farmers. That's essentially what they're doing. And I think that is. You also have to. In dealing with policy in Washington, D.C. you also have to ask what is implementable. Right. So we have this great network of county FSA offices, that's a farm service agency around our nation. And. And what is something that they can actually do that provides that kind of base level of support? You're not going to take away the need for creativity and increases in productivity and the farmers figuring things out. We need that. We need a system that doesn't make farmers numb to the signals of the market. We don't want to just say, keep on doing what you've been doing forever. We wouldn't want that. As a nation, they have to be dynamic. They have to look and be creative. But there needs to be that base level of support that gives them the flexibility to make that kind of slow growth and change, to diversify. Maybe, maybe it is bringing livestock into the operation or maybe it is transitioning to something like organic or maybe it is in some cases getting bigger and, and just being able to manage and spread those costs across more acres and be highly productive. All those things are good things, but we've got to have that. You know, you want a level of support that allows farmers to make those decisions on their own with some level of support.
• 44:29
  Speaker A: And you know, I think a good way to think about, you know, think about Maslow's, you know, needs, hierarchy of needs, you know, like in one way to think about it. It's like, you know, if I think if you could take a family farm and give them a foundation that's like, we so value what you do. We want to eat, so we're going to keep you there. Okay, trick question. Is there a way? Okay, let me preface by this. I just read this. Last week, Kroger record profits, I think $41 billion in last quarter. The most they've ever made. Their CEO makes like 517 times what the local cashier makes. Okay, so now we're talking about the end of the supply chain. Is there a way to create policy that makes it where farmers get paid at least what they're putting in on their crop? Because a lot of these commodities, you know, you're not even the price of the commodity doesn't even cover the cost of producing that commodity. And they're being sold to big corporations. Those folks, I don't think they're losing money. So without like saying do away with capitalism because I'm a capitalist, but I also believe people are not always good. And that means corporations also are broken, fallen, however you want to say that.
• 45:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I'll be the first to say greed is not good. But attempts at bureaucracies, bureaucracies trying to govern that never have worked worked out well. The belief my faith has to be in the marketplace, that if there's an area that's being overcompensated, that's going to drive competition for someone to come and get a piece of that action. That's the belief in the market. And I believe over time in history, the market tends to solve those problems better than some dictate from the government. It's my opinion. I'm a conservative guy and patient to kind of let some of those things work. You know, this was even coming into our current presidential debate where candidate Harris, Vice President Harris has talked about this kind of trying to manipulate or have the government control how much profits can be taken at various segments of the economy.
• 46:42
  Speaker A: Well, no, we have laws that have impacted on like Microsoft and other corporations that, that are, you know. Well, in fact, I think that the Kroger Albertsons issue, which, you know, they were gonna merge and I don't think it's happened. And part of that is because they're like, you're gonna be so big that there's not gonna be competition.
• 47:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's been in an antitrust review.
• 47:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. It works in the reverse. So, you know, and I know we just don't have a lot of, you know, I think there's. I don't know. But I think, I wonder to your point earlier about what's developing in these niche markets, if that's kind of what we're seeing.
• 47:18
  Speaker B: Well, it's a way that farmers can get more of the value of what they produce. I mean, I know some farmers that are marketing at a local kind of market called the Merck, Dr. Ben Edwards. And it's really cool that they're taking it from the farm, sell it there.
• 47:35
  Speaker A: There'll be less frontier market on the square in plenty of view.
• 47:38
  Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have mentioned one because there are a lot of people doing this and I get really excited about that kind of stuff. And it is a way that in that competitive market environment where someone sees, gosh, someone else is getting all the action off of this, maybe I could get a piece of that action. And they're actually producing a very high quality product. They're taking a great deal of pride in what they produce because they know their name is attached to it. And I love that they're being rewarded for that to the consumer. Consumers out there. Yeah. If you're going to buy Velveeta or you're going to buy some cheese from a local market, I'd say go buy the cheese from a local market.
• 48:14
  Speaker A: Exactly. Well, thanks for being here.
• 48:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:17
  Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I think we could like go another hour or so because I have like.
• 48:20
  Speaker B: A million other questions we'll have to do another time. Thanks for the opportunity, Tiller.
• 48:24
  Speaker A: Thanks, friends, for joining us again for another episode of Conservation Stories. And if you would please do us a favor and you can do a favor for Tom. Tom, tell us the name of your podcast because he has a great, great ag podcast.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's Groundwork on Farm Policy Facts, which is a, which is a kind of a PR group that we work with in Washington, D.C. just to try and kind of bounce back against some of the negativity that's out there about, about agriculture. So, yeah, the Groundwork Podcast on Farm Policy Facts. Thanks for that.
• 48:51
  Speaker A: I, I like, I like listening to it because I don't have to, like, so often. It's like everything's fear driven, you know, and that's what gets people to listen or motivated. And so I like it because it's, it's really facts driven. So thanks for being here. And so go follow, look, look at Groundwork and then rate and review and share. Follow all that, follow all of those things. Do all those things you are donating to the gods when you do that.
• 49:15
  Speaker B: Indeed.
• 49:15
  Speaker A: So thank you.
• 49:16
  Speaker B: Thank you. Adios.